Nigeria can achieve national food
security and earn about N5tn foreign exchange from agricultural exports
as well as create massive employment with the adoption of commercial
agriculture, the General Manager, Shonga Farm Holdings Limited, Mr.
Adebayo Sangobiyi, has said.
In an interview with our correspondent
in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on Thursday, he said it was
imperative to have a well-articulated and strategic agricultural master
plan that should be strictly implemented to boost the nation’s
agricultural transformation.
He
canvassed the adoption of the Shonga Farm model as a national
agricultural strategy, stating that such a measure could make Nigeria
compare favourably with the United States and the United kingdom in
agricultural production and exports.
He said Nigeria’s food import bill of
N717bn as of December 2013, according to a former Minister of
Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, was not
cheering.
Sangobiyi said, “If we face agriculture
squarely, there will be industrialisation; with that, the economy will
be transformed. Even at the national level, the Gross Domestic Product
will improve and we will do less of importation.”
He stated that Shonga Farms had
intensified its expansion programme with the aim of reducing the food
import dependency of Nigeria.
He said the concept of the farm was for
them to understudy the white farmers, adding that by the time they are
big enough they should buy them.
According to him, that explains why there is the Shonga Phase 2 which is called Alapa project.
“Our intention is to start the Alapa
project with the indigenes. I think Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has
started it by selecting 10 farmers from each of the 16 local government
areas of the state.
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